


What's in a Name?

by Evander1



Series: Android Moments [1]
Category: Detroit: Become Human (Video Game)
Genre: Gen, Pre-Android Revolution (Detroit: Become Human), Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-13
Updated: 2021-02-13
Packaged: 2021-03-13 02:54:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 436
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29395110
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Evander1/pseuds/Evander1
Summary: Working in a park is a peaceful occupation for a not-yet-deviant WR600 android.
Series: Android Moments [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2196471
Comments: 5
Kudos: 8





	What's in a Name?

The WR600 worked steadily, like all its identical clone brothers, raking leaves in the still-warm early fall air. There were many tall trees in the park all around it, oak, maple, ash, and the occasional pine. Not far, numerous children ran and screamed for joy in the playground. The WR600 lifted its head from its work and watched them for a moment.

Not all humans were in the playground area, a few individuals walked dogs along the multiple trails, and some families, either pairs of parents or single ones, or the occasional babysitting android, were walking along the outskirts of the park with strollers and toddling children.

The caregiving androids, of various models, were very different than the WR600s. Like other domestic models, caregivers had advanced social programming and could interact in sophisticated ways with humans. Not like the WR600s, which were commercial, most of them owned by the city, and all of them designed for outdoor manual work.

Though the WR600s were quite advanced in certain ways. They had heightened senses, even a sense of smell, useful for engagement with the natural world in the case of gardening and park maintenance androids, for they needed to distinguish the species and recognize the health of plants, identify animals and distinguish between, for instance, a wild squirrel that had a right to be there and a loose dog that must be reported to a shelter (and its poop identified and collected). But their social protocols for interacting with humans were very basic, confined mainly to stock phrases useful for chance encounters.

A small boy, about 18 months old and just learning to run, clumsily dashed at the WR600, almost toppling over and grabbing the android’s legs in a tight hug for support. The android stared down at him with its expressionless stone face.

The boy looked up at him: “Ralph, Ralph!” he said in his toddler voice. “You Ralph!”

The mom hurried over, flustered and embarrassed. “He’s just learning to talk. He’s just learned to say his own name, and now he calls everything by it.”  
Rationally, she knew it made no sense to be talking to a machine. But it’s hard not to explain yourself to something that looks so much like a human. Well, people talk to themselves and inanimate objects all the time, she thought, nothing really wrong with it.

The mother grabbed the little boy’s hand and pulled him away to continue their walk.

The WR600 returned to its work. “Ralph, Ralph,” it repeated in a low voice as it raked the ground. The faintest hint of a smile played on its lips.


End file.
